


Sleep with the Value of Coffee

by elumish



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-17
Updated: 2015-04-17
Packaged: 2018-03-23 08:43:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3761953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elumish/pseuds/elumish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He likes food; he doesn’t like sleep.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sleep with the Value of Coffee

The thing is that Rodney doesn’t sleep.

Of course, nobody on Atlantis sleeps, but he and Sheppard are basically tied for sleeping the least (now that Elizabeth is gone); he knows this because he set his tablet to alert him any time Sheppard’s door opens during normal sleeping hours, just in case. Not that he’s told Sheppard that, because Sheppard wouldn’t get it, and even if he did, he would make Rodney turn it off, and Rodney’s not sure he’s willing to do that.

Or, rather, Rodney’s sure he’s not willing to do that. He needs to be able to get moving at any time, just in case, and the best way to do that is to always know when the only person likely to have more information than him was doing something he theoretically wouldn’t normally be doing. And it was reassuring to know that someone else was awake who knew what was going on. Really knew, more than the Marine grunts who were running patrols.

But either way, he doesn’t sleep. Not really. He just cat-naps. He knows the optimal amount of time to sleep to complete a REM cycle—sometimes two—and spends the rest of the time doing the work that needs to be done that nobody has the time to do because they’re constantly halfway to being eaten alive and halfway towards their city failing because they never have enough power even when they do.

None of them know it, not really. Other than Sheppard, maybe, but he’s about as likely to say something about it as Rodney is, so he’s set. They think his sleep habits are like his food habits, but the thing is, he _likes_ food; he doesn’t like sleep. It takes too much time, too much energy, and he spends too much of it dreaming about things he doesn’t want to think about.

His only ever therapist said that, rather than seeing sleep as a waste of time, he instead doesn’t trust himself to sleep because then he is vulnerable and unable to defend himself. He never went in for another appointment. Because what does that person know, anyway? Psychology is, at best, a pseudoscience, and at worst a poorly disguised attempt at social engineering.

And none of that matters now anyway, because sleep is dangerous, and it’s not that he doesn’t trust himself to sleep but that he doesn’t trust anyone else to keep them alive while he is sleeping. Except, of course, Sheppard, but if Sheppard is saving the day, he’s going to need him, so that doesn’t negate the necessity of being awake.

So he lives his life having sleep with the value of coffee, because if you try hard enough sleep and caffeine are basically the same thing, and he’s had more than enough practice.

**Author's Note:**

> These are probably going to slow down as I work more on the longer SG-1/SGA story I'm writing.


End file.
